they've become america's weapon of choice when fighting terrorism now a new report looks at where the u.s. is housing drones overseas what does this say about the future of warfare in the region are to you a question more. and drones are being deployed here in the u.s. by local police departments as well but not everyone is happy about the high tech

machines flying overhead a look at why police claim they need the drone and the group fighting against them . and are they our friend or are we do as has a complicated relationship with china to say the very least but are we headed for a new red square new red scare no matter who wins the white house next month. it's friday october twenty sixth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching our teeth. all right starting off tonight a new report by the washington post is shining a spotlight on the u.s. drone program in north africa under a cloud of secrecy the military and cia are expanding one base in particular right here this is the camp led monday a five hundred acre u.s. military base in the capital of the impoverished former french colony of djibouti

it started off as a temporary staging area for marines trying to get a foothold on the volatile region back in two thousand and two but it's quickly become a major asset in u.s. counterterrorism operations and as you can see this camp's location is part of its allure djibouti shares a sea border with yemen and a land border with somalia now just to quickly go over some of those numbers for you thirty two hundred u.s. troops contractors and civilians work on your booty three hundred of them are dedicated solely to the drone program in that camp the u.s. pays djibouti thirty eight million dollars a year to lease the camp and it's in the middle of one of the most popular in the middle of a one point four billion dollar expansion deal and this country certainly isn't the only one seeing an influx of unmanned aircraft in the skies for more on this changing face of war i was joined by scott horton contributing editor at harper's magazine take a look. well i think you did

a very good job and the lead in presenting the strategic element here so in fact if you look at recent briefing that's been provided by senior figures in the intelligence community we see something of a pivot going on away from iraq and afghanistan to north africa broadly as an area of concern arc that runs from mali all the way across the sahara sail region and winds up in the horn of africa and somalia these are areas of focused attention and of course just across the red sea there in that narrow strait is yemen which may be may be emerging after pakistan is the next major focal area for drone activities and we know that the drones in fact are operated from facilities largely from tinsel he's back in the united states in fact there's

an air force base and where a lot of this is going on at langley we see a lot of direction but you have to maintain and operate them locally so that's the reason for the bases and the contractors and the uniformed professionals on the ground there in djibouti who will do this maintenance and guidance action may they may also step in and handle operations of the drones at some time at some points to and scott i know that the military installation here in djibouti is the only one of its kind is this just the first of many to come or is this a place that the military to get away with in a country because it is so small so impoverished that many times too many flies under the radar so to speak. well i think it's clear the united states is in talks with several different countries with respect to siting some of these installations to booty is one that surfaced there are actually several island nations in the indian ocean that have. in fact housed drone operations and have been in

discussions with the united states for longer term drone operations and we've seen signals are hence that something like this may be going on in several other african countries as well so they'll need that sort of infrastructure of support and they're building it and i think you know if this raises the normal spectrum of base citing issues with the host nation so usually having a foreign military force on your soil is not a popular thing it's in fact there usually is political strong political opposition to it on the other hand you know djibouti here. i mean that's almost juba the xrays on d'être it's it's been host for foreign forces for a long long time the french have been there for more than a century and this is the backbone of the economy and to the fact these military

forces and the u.s. is usually prepared to pay serious money to have the support and have the basically says no other countries particularly in this part of the world that are eager to have that money and thirty eight million dollars a year to lease that land is quite a bit of money for an impoverished nation but scott one of the major criticisms of the drone program is the malfunctions and the crashes i mean there are no pilot crews in these aircraft meaning no american lives are in danger and these planes do cost one fifth of the price of an f.a. fifteen so replacing them isn't all that expensive if they do crash but i mean on the other hand there have been numerous crashes sung by providing potential intelligence to enemies and some endangering civilians and what's more important is that there are reports of technical malfunctions of these machines i mean in march of two thousand and eleven for instance there is a documented instance of a predator drone starting its engine by itself through all of the ignition was off

in the fuel line was closed so i mean this technology is far from perfect right. that's right i mean it's a technology that's being developed over time but even sophisticated technologies misfunction and of course these are being guided remotely and one of the big concerns about drones is that if you can guy that remotely so can someone else another power may be able to tap and manipulate your drone ends and seize control of it so you know that's an issue but i'd say the bigger issue is not so much for this part of the world i mean north africa sea we don't have an awful lot of air traffic there but now it's a match and twenty or thirty thousand drones operating in the united states or over western europe areas that are extremely congested with air traffic and you know we don't have the resources right now to track or monitor them the risk of collisions and damage resulting from collisions will be astronomically larger over these highly populated areas specially north america and western europe through because

of course ed mentioned that all of this information this newest information is coming out in a three part series in the washington post now we also know that the united nations is getting ready to start investigating the use of drones by the u.s. in the middle east i mean they're asking the u.s. to quote clarify the procedures in place to ensure that any target killing complies with international humanitarian law and humanitarian rights and indicate the measures or strategies applied to prevent casualties as well as the measures in place to provide a prompt thorough effective and independent public investigations of the alleged violations now the u.n. special repertoire ben emmerson did go on to say that if the relevant states are not willing to establish effective independent monitoring mechanism then the un may have to finally resort to to the last resort for the u.n. might be that it needs to take action but it needs god can we really expect

anything out of the u.n. at this point what is their responsibility i mean i think this is one area. where the u.n. is acting entirely within their confidence you know what's going on here essentially is we're seeing a new form of where work there develop and there are very serious questions as to how this checks against the existing standards of international humanitarian law and the law of war itself and the u.s. is own position about this it's been extremely ambiguous i mean there's been a couple of important speeches given by officials at the obama administration where they've set out some guidelines and they've also left an enormous number of questions on the answers because we're going to have to leave it there i really appreciate your time sir the fact is that there's a lot of things that we do know about this drone program and a lot more things that we don't know about the strong crowd around scott horton contributing editor of harper's magazine thank you for your time great to be with you and your own programs aren't only expanding abroad they're also gaining momentum right here at home check this out this is the many helicopter dragon flyer

x. six it's much smaller than the predator and reaper drones used in the middle east instead of being equipped with missiles this little guy carries a camera that at most weighs thirty five ounces it also only has a battery power life of about ten minutes sounds harmless right well privacy advocates certainly don't think so and many in the community are up in arms about the idea of drones patrolling their skies. we had. just last night the seattle police invited the public to take a look at the drones in question a handful of people showed up to make their disapproval known to the forum now as it stands earlier this year the federal aviation administration or the f.a.a. gave the seattle p.d. permission to fly the drones under a set of very strict guidelines however the a.c.l.u.

is asking for even more restrictions so are the people of seattle making something out of nothing or should they be concerned to bring this up to date on the latest in this drone controversy i was joined earlier by trevor tim activist for the electronic frontier foundation. well this is kind of the first time of the public is getting its chance to express his feelings and know at the local level about these drones i mean the f.a.a. has been handing out these authorisations for about a year now as you said but now police departments are finally starting to at least put in plans to start putting them to use and i think people are really worried that their privacy is going to be invaded by these drones you know the argument is that these drones are exactly the same as the ones that fly overseas because they're smaller and the battery life is lower but the problem is this technology is advancing so rapidly these drones are going to be able to fly for hours and days the time very soon and the police will take advantage of that and i think the

citizens of seattle are concerned about their privacy and want to make sure that the proper safeguards are in place to make sure they don't get warm sleep i don't know if trevor while you're on this topic of these many drones i do think it's important as you just started to do to highlight the differences in these many drones versus the ones that are used by the military i mean first of all the f.a.a. has strict guidelines on these drones they can't fly at night they can't fly over people or crowds so spying on protests and out they must be flown under four hundred feet in the air and the drone operator in the observer must be within eyesight of the drone at all times so these policies are different do they offer some sort of promise. well actually no you're correct that these call though that those are the exact policies that are in place now of the f.a.a. is set to drastically expand those in the coming year to actually a public records request we got through our drone census project. was partnering

with mccracken news to file public records requests all of the u.s. found that the seattle police department thinks that the f.a.a. is going to expand its its regulations in the next year so that they can fly it in other places and you know predator drones are actually owned by the federal government and they fly along the borders of canada and mexico so there are predator drones that are flying around the u.s. obviously not with missiles on them they're just for surveillance but the thing is that this technology. is transfer is transforming so rapidly that eventually police will be able to use drones maybe they may be smaller but they'll be able to stay in the air for long periods of time even the congressional research service report on drones in the fourth amendment said the same thing so it's definitely a legitimate we're right and whale while right now they can only fly for about ten minutes who knows what can happen in the future but ten minutes does sound a little short right now so another point that i do want to bring up here is that the battery life on these guys is very small that's what we were just talking about

but also the missions of these drones are very different than the ones you see overseas they're dedicated to search and rescue operations natural disasters and unusual crimes or at least that's what the seattle p.d. says they will be used for are you worried that they'll be used for other things in the future and will there be any proof that they could be used for other things. yeah i mean you're right there are definitely very legitimate uses for drones that could help out society like you said mapping natural disasters fighting forest fires those kind of things but the problem is mission creep gets involved and when the technology advances to the point where they can fly for hours there's a time for it's very cheaply cleaves can start using the purser vallance i mean a bunch of police agencies already have expressed interest in this you know the seattle police department deserve some credit for being so open with this saying that they're not going to use them for protests or surveillance on people and hopefully they'll put that in britain binding rules so they can live up to those

promises but police across the country have expressed interest in using them for proactive purposes in california for example here sheriff down the down the street actually said he wanted to use it to find marijuana growers or use it for proactive policing for public records requested suspicious persons or large crowd control so there's definitely a legitimate worry that this is what they're going to use them for maybe not in seattle and hopefully they can prove us right on that but in other places it's it's definitely could definitely become a real consequence right and i know that the a.c.l.u. has also laid out the criteria as i mentioned earlier that it wants the police to agree to before using the drones i mean the a.c.l.u. wants to know under what circumstances these drones are going to be used what type of information they're going to collect how the information is going to be used how long they're going to keep this information they want an auditing process to ensure at harris for the policies for the drone use except i mean so does any of this if

the police agree to those terms would that make privacy advocates happy with that do it. oh yeah absolutely that would go a long way in showing their serious about caring about americans' privacy and we want to make sure those who are on the books before they start flying these all around the country because once they're in the air and the police think they don't have any rules they're not going to want to implement tighter controls so we completely agree with the a.c.l.u. we need data retention standards telling us you know they're leading this footage what they're using this footage for making sure they're not sharing it with the agencies making sure that they get a warrant if they're going after surveillance on an individual person all sorts of safeguards they can put in place so they can use drones for legitimate purposes that could really help society and you know if seattle ends up going this way and putting this in the city council puts this in a binding ordinance that i think they could actually be a model for the rest of the nation on how they approach this issue rather than you

know something somebody looks at and says you know we don't want this absolutely trevor and we do have to give it to the south for at least showing some part of transparency and coming out with this public airing and both showing what the technology can do and also taking the questions and criticisms of the public chapter ten activists with the electronic frontier foundation thank you so much for your opinions. all right well moving line right along now who says you can't recycle political ads the americans for prosperity super pac along with citizens against government waste is bringing back one of those scary ads from the twenty ten election just in time for home a week but instead of go sing goblins china is the scary monster lurking in the shadows in the here twenty thirty the spot shows what seems to be a professor in a classroom teaching his students about why great nations fail comparing the united states with the greek and roman empires now you might remember it but here's a case. maybe we should see the season.

ends on g.p.s. i think. that is only says you. don't. suppose. she don't think he was. not the ad will run through november eleventh on cable networks across the country china is so often the go to fearmonger nation and this was no exception during the presidential primaries even coming from the romney camp and this anti china rhetoric is creeping up again in the presidential debates with respect to china china's both an ad the search but also a potential partner in the international community if it's following the rules so by attitude coming into office was that we are going to insist the china plays by

the same rules as everybody else we can be a partner with china we don't have to be an adversary in any way shape or form we can work with them we can collaborate with them if they're willing to be responsible but while president obama and mitt romney cast stones at the country while cautiously agreeing that the u.s. needs to find ways to get along with the chinese there might be a bigger threat to international trade and the u.s. economy now that is the secret of a multinational trade agreement known as the transpacific partnership critics say that the t p p threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property laws across the globe and rewrite international laws rules to enforce those laws now the st louis is the international campaign store actor with public citizen and joined me earlier to talk about why the tea party is such a threat to american industry. the the trans-pacific partnership is this. trade

talks with specific rim nations and it's an example of how corporate money really does influence politics and policies in our country what we've seen with particularly with the discussion around china on one hand you hear president obama talking about the transpacific partnership as a way to contain china and that they're talking with other pacific rim nations so that they can contain china while on the other hand the actually the u.s. trade representative says they would actually love nothing more than for china to be a part of these negotiations so what you're actually saying is it's a way for corporate corporate america to try to get through the back door through so-called trade talks a way to get policies that they can get through a democratic process and if they need to scapegoat china as a way to try to convince congress and the public to do that that's what they're trying to do and yet we do know that the transpacific partnership the shrouded in so much secrecy there are so many things that we just don't know about this bill

about this partnership about what it could possibly do and offer for americans can you talk a little bit about what we don't know and what we do know more specifically well what's very concerning is the transpacific partnership has been going on the negotiations been going on for more than two and a half years and yet the people in the united states barely even know that it exists it's happening completely behind closed doors but there are six nearly six hundred corporate advisors who have access to the techs who know what's happening and yet the public congress and the media are completely left out of knowing what's happening but given a few leaks that we have seen through the process we're very concerned about what's actually in side these negotiations we've seen that it's a it's an attempt for big pharma super suitable corporations to try to extend their monopoly is to block out generic competition keep to. drug prices high which is basically the antithesis of free trade we see it as

a way for large copyright owners to try to police the internet to reduce internet freedom for people and we're seeing it as ways for foreign investors both in the united states and other countries to try to attack our public interest our public health our environmental laws that they think that are going to affect their future profits and so what we see is that it's actually very not very much about trade at all but much more about this one percent corporate agenda to try to get through in the backdoor much more about preserving that right to keep the money flowing between the countries but not necessarily to her had to what than the rest of the country possibly needs so let's also talk about the fact that this is happening under president obama as this has been happening for the last two years what a mitt romney administration change it or would it make it worse well we've we've basically what we're seeing through both candidates is that they both are committed to this corporate led so-called free trade agenda basically expanding of the failed nafta model and we don't see much difference between between what they're actually

pushing for what we saw president obama in his two thousand and eight campaign said that he actually did intend to try to fix the problems of the nafta model but what we're seeing through the t.t.p. unfortunately is just an extension of those failed policies that actually offshore jobs that actually encourage more of the loss of more u.s. manufacturing jobs and then we also see all these other very concerning policies that attack our public interest regulations and regulating wall street all types of regulations that we believe are very important in order to protect the public interest and yet what we have here today is like we showed that we're showing this the harsh criticism of china which is one of the partners in the agreement they are pretty instrumental from what i understand but actually at this point they are they are not part of the agreement at this point about it but if it's intended. to be a docking agreement that perhaps china at some point in the future could join right

and trying to make so many so many go as they manufacture so much so what possible interest or would it hurt the u.s. and hope and maybe the trans-pacific partnership in the future to be partnering partnering with china or to be cracking down on trying to would that have any effect on what's going on with the trans-pacific partnership well what's what's interesting is that the u.s. position or president obama's position that they're using the transpacific partnership as a way to contain china is actually could be very detrimental to the negotiations there are people new zealand for example in the in the negotiations and said that if it were intended to try to contain china or to be a counterweight to china they would actually reduce pull out of the negotiations so it'll be interesting to see whether they do indeed do that now that we've seen that in the election cycle the candidates are using the t p p the transpacific partnership as a way to bait china while again on the speaking out of the other side of their

mouth they're actually saying that they would like for china to be able to enjoy to join eventually so. definitely the prize the market for most of the corporations that are in engaged in these in the into the p.p. they're looking at vietnam which is a part of the negotiations and probably eventually china japan and others as well that could join later and one of the let's quickly talk about we only have about a minute left but let's quickly talk about what other alternatives there are to nafta and to the to pay what can what can these nations do to work together to ensure free trade but at the same time also protect their countries their people and not like you say the one percent well what what needs to happen is that the negotiations need to be made public we need to know what what what's actually being proposed for our countries we need to be able to have a true public debate to be able to put out on the table that yes we can engage in trade but we can do that in a very responsible way protecting our national sovereignty. making sure that our that our regulations in the public interest protecting the environment protecting

public health are able to move forward and that they're not undermined by corporate interests already in a st louis international campaign so after public citizen thank you so much for your time thank you for having me so much in here is now you may have seen this film from two thousand and nine showing at the vast disaster filled apocalyptic future. twenty first. now those fireballs are coming at us from what is now in the not so distant future namely december twenty first two thousand and twelve for the last half decade we've heard that the mayan calendar predicts the world's end when

two thousand and twelve draws to a close this group leap prediction might not make people comfortable but it sure has made some people rich take the film we just showed you twenty twelve which made more than seven hundred seven hundred sixty nine million dollars at the box office in fact one of mahler's tourism agency is planning to celebrate doomsday with a ninety thousand person celebration now the mine people are fighting back saying that the idea of the world coming to an end in two thousand and twelve did not come from their calendar instead they say it came from their government and tour groups looking to make a quick buck off from it my own leader philippe gomez said that the idea was quote folklore for profit the idea two thousand and twelve will bring the apocalypse is based on a misunderstanding in the mayan calendar saying that that calendar will end but it's actually just a cycle of that calendar that will end not the world as we know it here's one of the alliance of mayans will say say what actually happened on december twenty first

they say quote there will be big changes on the personal family and community level so that there is harmony and balance between mankind and nature so. will guatemala's tourism industry switch gears to avoid offending and misrepresenting the mayan culture no word yet but a business for growing profits in the name of understanding now that's one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. and that's going to do it for the news for tonight but to tune in next week we've got a brand new lineup for you r.t. is counting down to the elections will the incumbent barack obama be able to stretch his lead enough to win back the white house or will public in contender mitt romney be able to shake the one percent stereotypes and propel himself into the presidency with his economic plan our team will be covering the elections in ways you won't see on the mainstream news and be careful what you say on the phone

chances are the government might be listening but next week the supreme court is going to take a critical look at the government policies for eavesdropping on international communications next week will bring the case and when you think of exotic dancers you probably think of stripper poles skimpy outfits and lots and lots of dollar bills right well i've got three more words to add to that list that could possibly change your views on the industry class action lawsuit next week we'll show you the disturbing conditions these women work in and tell you how a few of them are standing up for their rights those are just a few of the stories we have in store for you next week with more news and in-depth interviews so keep it tuned in right here to our t.v. and that's going to do it for me for tonight but for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website r t dot com site.